Column: Schools dispensing birth control

By Patrick Welsh

The Alexandria, Va., school system made a decision in 2010 that will ultimately do more to improve the test scores and behavior at T.C. Williams High School than all the educational innovations it has spent millions of dollars on over the years. The school moved an adolescent health center that since 1986 had been three blocks from the campus into the school, right next to the guidance office. Rechristened the "Teen Wellness Center," the clinic is staffed by a full-time primary care physician and a nurse practitioner.

2006 photo by Leigh Shelle Robertus, AP

National rates on teen pregnancy: Half of girls who had children before age 18 graduate from high school, and less than 2% earn a college degree by the time they're 30.

National rates on teen pregnancy: Half of girls who had children before age 18 graduate from high school, and less than 2% earn a college degree by the time they're 30.

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Since the move, student use of the clinic has almost doubled. In a school where 55% of more than 2,000 students are on the free and reduced lunch program and many have no medical insurance, a free clinic can deal with health issues that might otherwise go untreated or cost taxpayers thousands of dollars in emergency room care.

Of all the benefits of the move, the most striking to me and other veteran teachers here on the front lines is that we have not been seeing as many girls making their way down the hallways seven or eight months pregnant. Our impression was confirmed by David Wynne, the school's social worker, who says that two years ago, when the clinic was still off campus, there were 50 pregnancies. Last year, the first year the clinic was in the school, the number was 35 and as of now, there are only 20 with the year more than two-thirds over. He thinks the drop in pregnancies is due to the convenient access to the clinic, plus the ease of getting contraceptives, including the Plan B "morning after" pill.

Most favor school role

All babies are a blessing, of course, as I have often told those girls in my classes who are about to deliver. At that point, it's too late for me to tell them that I wish they had waited until they were older, finished with their education and ready to give that child all he or she deserves.

I am all for doing whatever it takes to prevent teenage girls from having children. And two-thirds of Americans agree with allowing public schools to provide birth control to students, according to a 2007 AP-Ipsos poll.

The more difficult question, however, was highlighted at the end of last year when Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius decided, against the advice of the Food and Drug Administration, to hold to the rule that girls younger than 17 could not get Plan B without a prescription. Her decision, and the debate that ensued, highlighted the many difficult moral questions regarding young teenage girls and the distribution of contraception.

Based on what I've seen at T.C. Williams, I favor giving contraceptives to all who ask, and here's why:

First, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, just half of girls who had children before age 18 graduate from high school, and less than 2% earn a college degree by age 30. And not only is the future of the teen mother imperiled, but that of her children as well. About two-thirds of children born to teen mothers earned a high school diploma vs. 81% of children of older mothers, the organization also noted.

More teens use protection

Second, the U.S. teen birth rate has been steadily declining. In 2010, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it fell to 34.3 per 1,000 females ages 15-19, the lowest level reported for the U.S. The CDC says there has been a decrease in the number of teens having sex and an increase in those using contraceptives.

Even so, according to the National Assembly on School-Based Health Care, a national advocacy organization in Washington that is supported by foundations and the federal government, 60% of the more than 1,100 public high school clinics are forbidden from dispensing contraceptives, based, for the most part, on the politics of individual school districts.

In Virginia, state law says any minor is entitled to confidential reproductive health care. So at T.C. Williams, Dr. Robert Wolverton, who runs the clinic, says he can give the Plan B pill to girls younger than 17, as any physician can prescribe and give out pills in his or her office.

A common argument against dispensing birth control to teens is that it will encourage more teens to have sex. It's also a big myth. The South, which has the highest percentage of schools (55%) that require abstinence be taught as the only means of preventing pregnancy, has the highest rate of teen births. Indeed, the reason that the U.S. teen birth rate is more than twice that of Canada and other nations is not that teens in those countries have been practicing abstinence, but that they have had easier access to birth control and are more likely to obtain abortions.

Of course, teenage pregnancy does happen in any racial, ethnic or income group. But school-based clinics are giving our most vulnerable students a chance to escape the cycle of poverty by keeping them child-free, while at the same time benefiting society as a whole.

According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, teen childbearing cost U.S. taxpayers at least $10.9 billion in 2008. For that same year, teen child-bearing in Virginia cost taxpayers $215 million.

For the most vulnerable girls, who might still be struggling to see themselves as successful, schools like mine are ultimately choosing the greater good by doing everything possible to prevent a pregnancy that could severely limit their futures.

Patrick Welsh is an English teacher at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria,Va., and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

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